National 4 (Spotlight Weekly)

“Public Opinion Is Always Ignored In The Atmosphere Of Violent Agitation”

— Kuber Sharma

Kuber Sharma has a checkered career. First Chartered Accountant of Nepal, he became a corporate executive, auditor and management consultant. He also worked as a journalist. He started his political career as a student leader. As a central committee member in the Nepali Congress, he was closely associated with B.P. Koirala, Ganeshman Singh and Krishna Prasad Bhattarai. He was elected to the parliament and served from 1991-1995. He clashed with Girija Koirala when he was Prime minister over corruption and bad governance, quit Nepali Congress in 1995 to found Green Nepal Party. His anti-corruption drive has been much applauded throughout the nation. He was a minister in the last Lokendra Bahadur Chand government and proved himself to be above board and capable. He believes society is looking for an alternative democratic party with innovative and creative leadership. He claims that his work has convinced the people that Green Nepal Party can give a clean government and conduct a free and fair election. Excerpts of his interview with Sanjaya Dhakal of SPOTLIGHT:

As a senior politician, how do you look at the present political situation in the country?

The unfortunate part of the present politics is that the leaders have lost their sense of direction. They are off the track and derailed. Parties who had benefited in the past had created instability by dissolving parliaments prematurely. The UML had also, in the past, agitated in the streets when it had resorted to breaking street barriers, hitting brickbats, holding torch-lit procession, blocking of parliament sessions and picketing the Supreme Court to influence justice. They even went to Royal Palace to submit petition to the King. Then Nepali Congress government, instead of negotiating with them, took an uncompromising stand. NC leader and then prime minister Girija Prasad Koirala wanted to uproot communists in the country. I advised him not to take this kind of irreconcilable stand – let communists come to the mainstream of politics, give them benefits, perks and privileges and let people see that they are more luxury-oriented leaders than capitalists. Now, the street demonstrations that I see are the continuation of that kind of irresponsible politics.

Do you think the agitation by the frustrated politicians is justified?

Agitation at this stage cannot be justified at any cost. Democracy is in crisis; mostly because of corruption and misuse of authority by bigger parties, and because of Maoists’ violent activities.

Why, do you think, have the Maoists taken to violent insurgency? What do they expect to achieve?

First thing is that the Marxist ideology is very attractive to youths and poor. The counterforce – the liberal democrats – failed to give good governance and ignored the poor people, Dalits and remote areas. Only a handful of party workers and leaders became rich and the gap between the poor and the rich widened.

It looks that the Maoists control the greater part of non-urban area in Nepal. Do you believe they also enjoy popular support?

In an atmosphere of violent agitation, public opinion is always ignored. The gun-holders, on both sides, do not care what the innocent men think about them. I don’t think the mass supports the violent politics – nowhere in the world.

It is being reported that they are being helped by foreign power. If so which foreign power you think, is helping them?

It is very difficult to name the party. What I would like to say is that politics is interdependent. Democrats, socialists, Maoists terrorists – they all have international organizations and contacts. How to tackle Maoists problem is the concern of Nepal. Friends of Nepal can only provide help and that they are doing.

How do you evaluate King Gyanendra’s visits to various districts in the present circumstances?

Monarchy is still a popular institution in Nepal. In post-democratic Nepal I have seen King Tribhuwan to King Gyanendra have visited various parts of the country and receive civic felicitations. Political parties who oppose the King’s visits are doing so with pre-conceived bias. By their very nature, parties are divisive, by which I mean they are organized on the basis of certain ideologies – they oppose each other. The measuring rod of the parties cannot be applied to the institution of monarchy. Parties must accept monarchy to be above party politics. That will only help to consolidate national integration.

Your Green Nepal Party is a small party. What is your standing in the politics of Nepal?

In politics or in any other field, whenever the strong and the big personality commits mistake, that does deep-rooted harm to society. Nation-building is a hard task, which can be performed only by visionary, honest and dynamic leaders. Green Party is small in size but it has been the leading force in fighting anomalies and distortions in our democratic process. We are the first to raise our voice against corruption, misuse of authority and have repeatedly drawn the attention of bigger parties that this kind of behavior will ultimately damage democracy. And that has happened. We have been telling that doing things in the same old style cannot produce new kind of results. There must be drastic reforms in working process to remove the existing social and regional disparities and to achieve alleviation of poverty. Green Nepal Party has succeeded to a large extent to establish its credibility and ability to provide good governance. Our party has many honest, sincere and capable persons. We also have international contacts. The country needs good governance and honest person as the prime minister – that, I think, our party can provide. We will achieve much better results in coming election.

Do you have any contacts with the Global Greens?

Our Green Nepal Party is a part of the Global Greens movement. In Germany, the Green Party has vice chairman in the government for the last seven years. In Australia and New Zealand, the Green movement is very strong. In European countries, the Green Parties are very strong – in Latvia they have a Green prime minister. In the last elections, Green Party gave a presidential candidate in the United States. Our party is active in green movement. We are signatory to Global Greens Charter.

The country is almost at the brink of precipice due to long and mounting insurgency of the Maoists, which has derailed the whole economy of the country. What, in your opinion, must be done to save the country?

Violence generates only violence. If you are in the war, you must fight resolutely. If the opponent or enemy puts forward the hand of negotiation, you must take it. All wars end in diplomatic negotiations. That will apply to Nepal as well.

How do you assess the Surya Bahadur Thapa government? Do you think it is aggravating the situation?

Surya Bahadur Thapa is a well-known party-less politician. He acts fine in conspiratorial politics and is very fond of reshuffling the bureaucracy. Nepotism is a part of his administration. His government is composed of former Panchayat leaders. That is why I see history is against him. People cannot accept such persons as democrats and custodians of democracy.

If your party is given the responsibility of forming the coalition government, do you have any foolproof roadmap to extricate the country from the imminent disaster?

Oh, yes. We can provide the much-needed corruption-free administration. We can take development programs to the disturbed areas to alleviate poverty, reduce social disparity and assure people of efficient service delivery. People have asked the King in his tour to provide peace, development and corruption free administration and we will be able to do that.

What do you think about the present constitution? Do you think it needs amendment?

It is like a person who has been disabled in an accident and whose limbs can’t be set right. Unless House of Representatives is restored, Upper House cannot be complete and constitutional wings cannot fill up the vacancies in them. But the sad part is that the House of Representatives cannot be reconstituted by elections unless parties stop their agitation and cooperate with the King. Without this there cannot be effective mobilization against the Maoists.

How do you look at the King’s role? Do you believe that he is taking the country to regression?

In my opinion, regression would have been more rigorous had there been Koirala, Nepal or Deuba’s government. Parties are very harsh to suppress their opposition. They had, in the past, tried to rule the country with iron-fist. For example, Girija Prasad Koirala wanted to mobilize army, declare emergency and introduce repressive laws against terrorists and sympathizers of terrorists. Then parties in parliament supported the government to counter the Maoists as their workers were joining the Maoist bandwagon. What the King is doing is to suppress the violent activities – that action will have been taken by anybody in the government. When there is violent disturbance, the first victim will be the civil liberties – that is the case here right now.

Do you think general elections can be held in the present situation?

Not only our party, even those parties in the agitation admit that elections cannot be held. The only thing is that they are engaging in double-speak. For them to survive, elections is necessary but they have lost their rationale because of their lust for power. Why should they be installed in the government without fresh mandate? They are culprits of misusing authority and rigging elections. Fair and free elections must be held to save democracy. The King should be there to oversee the fair elections.

What would be your top priority at the moment?

Our top priority is to fight the Maoists resolutely; and expose the secret alliance of the agitating political parties with their enemy force - the Maoists. Furthermore, poverty alleviations program should be conducted on war footing. Projects of national importance should also be implemented on priority basis.

Any advice to the King or any message to the people?

The King must be receiving thousands of advices. I can only say that those advices, which are acceptable to the King, should be implemented quickly. Decision-making procedures should be shortened and wrongdoers be penalized. People should also organize themselves to fight against anti-democratic and anti-monarchy forces. There is a need to form National Democratic Alliance (NDA) to galvanize patriotic forces rallying behind the institution of monarchy for the preservation of democracy.